Wednesday, 25 January 2017

How To Be Well Read ... A 2017 Goal

One of the first things I mentioned on my New Years Goals list was to stop buying so many books... so you may be surprised to find me only 25 days into the month, discussing what books I'm planning on buying.

Well, part of my plan for 2017 is to stop frivolously buying books. Which means, stop buying YA fantasy books when I already have a tonne to read. But, I am a self confessed book buying addict which means that going cold turkey is not going to happen. Especially now that I've bagged myself a job that is a mere stone's throw away from Waterstones. Instead, I am allowing myself a mere 12-15 books to buy this year. Yes. 12-15 for the entire year!

Considering I could easily buy 10+ per shopping trip, this is a huge change to the usual for me and I for one am excited for it. The main thing for me however, is to change the type of books I'm reading. Christmas 2015 I was kindly brought "How to be Well Read" by John Sutherland, which is a list of 500 critically acclaimed (or controversial) books that you should aim to tick off if you want to become "Well Read" now whilst I find the idea of being Well Read or not rather pointless (why force yourself to read literature that you don't enjoy purely to say you've done so?) this book does highlight some key books that are not only acclaimed but important reads. This is something that I really wanted to include in my 2017 reading lists.

Many of the books that I have shortlisted for this year are feminist or sociological critiques on society and I would really love to develop my understanding on these subject matters over the course of the year to not only make me a more well rounded reader, but also a well rounded human being.

My 2017 list is as follows:

Lucius Apuleius - The Golden Ass (AD 160)

Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

Orson Scott Card - Enders Game (1985)

Angela Carter - Nights of the Circus (1984)

George Eliot - Middlemarch (1872)

Neil Gaiman - American Gods (2001)

Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day (1989)

Haruki Murakami - IQ84 (2009-10)

George Orwell - 1984 (1942)

Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar (1963)

Thomas Pynchan - Bleeding Edge (2013)

Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)

I'm really excited to get reading these 12. I'm aiming to read one a month and buy one a month... although I may have accidentally gone out and brought both The Handmaid's Tale and Nights of the Circus... yeah. In my defense I had a £10 off stamp card + about £10 on my points app so it had to happen really didn't it?

The extra 3 books I'm accounting for are my most anticipated releases of 2017. Both the TOG and ACOTAR (Feyre's Arc) series by Sarah J Maas are coming to an end this year and there will be a new ADSOM book out by V.E Schwab. These books are must buys for me so they are OBVIOUSLY going to be brought.

I would really love to know if you would be interested in reading full reviews for each of these books? I really enjoy analysing books and since leaving Uni I've not had much cause to, so if that would interest you then please let me know in the comments!